If California doesn't hang itself one way - cutting its own throat by cutting off the last refined drop of oil in the state or handing out more benefits to illegal residents who take much more than they give - they'll do it another way. They'll make it so expensive to hire anyone that there won't be any jobs to worry about.
So the state minimum wage is going up a required bump of forty cents, to $16.90 hr.
Californians will see the minimum wage increase to $16.90 per hour starting Jan. 1. The adjustment — a boost of 40 cents per hour — was calculated in August by the Department of Finance as part of its minimum wage annual review required by state law.
California has been raising its minimum wage over the past decade. Former Gov. Jerry Brown in 2016 signed a watershed law to increase minimum wage from $10.50 per hour to $15 per hour, plus annual adjustments for inflation.
Oh, where to spend it all?
Normally, that would be sarcasm, but in the pricey Golden State, a minimum wage job brings you nowhere near a living wage. Now, there is an argument to be made - which, in all honesty, I myself have deployed numerous times over the years - that a minimum wage job was never meant to be a living wage job. It was meant to be that kids' entry-level, retiree-keep-busy-supplement, or second-gig wage that got you that first or extra lift up.
But in a state as expensive as California, with its wildly diverse population, often, minimum wage jobs are what you have to get by on, and breaking out of them is nearly impossible.
How hard do you have to work on that minimum salary just to put a roof over your head, sans, like, eating or anything else?
Pretty damn hard.
...The current rate of $16.50 per hour suggests that a minimum wage worker needs to work 98 hours per week to afford a one-bedroom rental at fair market rent in California, according to the National Low Income Housing Coalition.
Some of these enterprising folks used to have another job as Pizza Hut delivery drivers, and that sort of thing. But then the all-knowing Gods of Progress screwed them out of that extra money, too, by creating a separate minimum wage for 'fast food' employees that started at $20 hr, and, for one example, away went the expendable drivers with the 2023 AB1228 law.
...Nearly 1,300 Pizza Hut delivery drivers in California are being laid off before the state’s minimum wage rises from $16 to $20 per hour for fast-food workers, Business Insider, USA Today and CBS News have reported. Two major Pizza Hut franchisees have filed notices of the layoffs in advance of AB 1228 taking effect on April 1, 2024; AB 1228 repealed the previously passed and signed FAST Act while implementing similar provisions.
Gleaning information from the state employment figures, it appears that the $20 hr carveout has already cost over 16,000 hard-hit workers in the state their jobs. Menu prices have soared by almost 15%.
...Today, new analysis from the Employment Policies Institute of quarterly data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics revealed that California has lost as many as 16,000 jobs since the state’s $20 fast food minimum wage law was signed in September 2023.
What a terrific job they're doing taking care of the little guy!
And it was probably more jobs than that.
Gavin Newsom: My $20 an hour minimum wage increase for fast food workers created 10,000 jobs to help lift women of color out of poverty
— Kevin Dalton (@TheKevinDalton) April 7, 2025
Reality: 23,100 fast food jobs have disappeared from California since Gavin’s minimum wage increase. pic.twitter.com/5aMVXm9l5g
As Katy Grimes points out in her column on the madness, these wage increases are all meant to help the 'regular' Californian, the working-class stiff, eventually buy his own chunk of the Golden State dream.
So, let's do some math. If they have to work 98 hours a week at $16.50 hr just to rent a place, what's it going to set them back to get the old homestead?
Actually, we don't have to do any math - Katy did it for us.
...Because the cost of living in California is so high, Democrat lawmakers think increasing the minimum wage to $16.90 per hour will help hourly workers afford a $900,000 home – the median home price in the Golden State. Even if that hourly worker put in a full-time year, they will only make $35,152, which is less than $3,000 monthly, which barely covers the median cost for a studio apartment. Currently, the average rent in California is $2,155 for Studio, $2,284 for 1 Bedroom, $3,240 for 2 Bedroom, $4,147 for 3 Bedroom, and $5,103 for 4+ Bedroom, according to Rentometer. California’s absurdly high cost of living will not be offset by a $16.90 minimum wage. It just makes Democrats feel better about themselves.
ALRIGHTY THEN - GET TO WORK, SLACKERS
A ninehunnertthousanddollar house don't buy itself, you know.
If $20 an hour has thousands of folks looking for new jobs, what on earth does the Los Angeles City Council think their scheme to increase the city's minimum wage to $30 hr in time for the LA Olympics is going to do?
...The City Council originally voted in May to approve a series of yearly wage increases for hotel employees and workers at Los Angeles International Airport, following a two-year campaign by labor organizers.
The law was put on hold during the subsequent opposition ballot campaign, but recently went into effect, with workers seeing the first increments in a series of wage increases designed to boost their minimum pay to $30 per hour by 2028.
Never mind - don't answer that.
The one sane voice on the council calling to stagger the wage hikes through 2030 is being beaten with a wet noodle.
...Hospitality and service employee unions sharply criticized the proposal.
“It is a shameful day in Los Angeles when our own elected leaders decide to put forth a motion to strip hard-earned wages from some of the city’s lowest-paid workers,” Yvonne Wheeler, president of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, said in a statement Friday. “These workers fought for more than two years to improve their working conditions, only to have the very people who should defend them try to take it all away.”
...David Huerta, president of SEIU-United Service Workers West, which represents airport workers, said the timing of the motion, in the middle of the holiday season, was “particularly callous.”
“We stand ready to defend the Olympic Wage,” he said in a statement.
THE OLYMPIC WAGE
Gawd, that's rich.
Meanwhile, working dudes, with that extra forty cents, while you still have a job?
This tiny California bungalow costs over $4,000 in rent. Those kinda prices could get you a whole mansion in other parts of the country. pic.twitter.com/cclJuhLwVc
— Neelotpal Srivastav (@NS_Neelotpal) January 5, 2026
On the upside, you could always keep your job, claim you were homeless, and get one of those ratty RVs.
GOOD NEWS
You can't get a ticket anymore.
...If Downtown Sacramento is any measurement, parking in California cities is a b*tch…and expensive. Parking meter maids are ruthless. Effective January 1st, Democrats, in their infinite wisdom, will reduce or waive parking fines if the vehicle owner can prove they are unable to pay for the ticket in full due to homelessness or financial hardship. This is largely to address the myriad RVs and beater cars lining city streets which are makeshift crack houses and homes to the 200,000 homeless, drug-addicted vagrants in California.
According to the author of AB 1299, Assemblyman Bryan: “Unpaid parking tickets can pose a significant burden for low-income individuals. For people living in poverty, parking tickets pose are a severe financial burden that can quickly spiral from a $52 fine to a vehicle registration hold. This bill gives local agencies the ability to look at a person’s whole circumstance when deciding an action on a parking ticket. For situations where a parking ticket can push an individual from poverty to financial crisis, local jurisdictions should have the ability to do what is best for their constituent.”
The state government flips the bird at starving students, struggling single moms, and other low wage workers who get parking tickets. You’re on your own while the homeless drug addicts get special consideration.
Dream big.
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